The Meaning Behind 10 Common Sports Car Acronyms

Hi CTzens! You guys really seemed to like my post about the meaning of estate names and acronyms - and so I thought I would do a similar post about the meaning behind sporty car acronyms. Enjoy!

When BMW launched the ‘Turbo’ Prototype in 1972, they were planning to produce a track-ready version to compete in motorsport events. At this time, Italian sport cars were dominating these events, and so BMW planned on teaming up with Lamborghini to produce their own sports car. However, that didn’t work out, and so BMW decided to develop the car on their own. They founded the BMW Motorsport GmbH.
In 1978, the production version of the Turbo Concept launched - it became known as the M1. It had been developed by the Motorsport GmbH , and it was the base model for the race cars.
In 1992, BMW combined BMW Individual and the Motorsport GmbH, which since then is known as the BMW M GmbH.

Street and Racing Technology (SRT) is the in-house tuning company for Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep. SRT originated as Team Viper, a division which developed the Dodge Viper. Later, they merged with Team Prowler (which had developed the Plymouth Prowler) and called themselves Specialty Vehicle Engineering or short SVE. Then, the SVE name was changed into Performance Vehicle Operations (PVO). However, all PVO-cars were called SRT, and so in 2004, it was decided to give the developing team the same name.
The cars developed by SRT use the name of the production car + SRT + the number of cylinders, so for example Dodge Charger SRT-8. The only exception was the Dodge SRT-4, which dropped its ‘Neon’ name.

The Ford TeamRS is Ford’s European performance car and motorsport division. The Ford RS badge was born for rally racing, the RS stands for Rallye Sport. TeamRS is the successor to Ford Special Vehicle Engineering (SVE).

Honda Type R models are special performance editions of their respective model families. The design of Type R models was originally focused on race conditions, with an emphasis on minimizing weight, and maximizing performance potential. Thus, Type R models were first conceived for racetracks. However, due to Honda’s increased focus on their highly regarded VTEC engines, Type R vehicles were eventually designed for a much wider market.
Type R vehicles traditionally have a red Honda badge and Championship White paint as an option, as a tribute to their first winning F1 car.

The Mercedes-AMG GmbH is the Mercedes high performance division.
On June 1st, 1967, AMG was founded by Hans Werner Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher. The third letter stands for Großaspach, a German village where Aufrecht was born and were the first AMG headquarters were located. The first big success came in 1971 when their AMG Mercedes 300 SEL 6.8 won the 24 hour race at Spa-Francorchamps. In 1990, they cooperated with Mercedes and are now a Mercedes-Benz Original-Equipment-Manufacturer (OEM). The first car which originated from this cooperation was the 1993 C 36 AMG.

Opel Performance Center (OPC) is a division of Opel, initially set up as a subsidiary in 1997. The main focus of OPC is the development of performance derivatives of the Opel range, such as the hot hatch Corsa OPC and Astra OPC. The OPC name is also used in some motorsport activities such as the VLN. The first OPC car was the Astra G OPC which launched in 1999.

Cupra is a commonly used name for Seat’s sporty models, and it’s short for Cup Racing. Sadly, this was all I could find out…

vRS is the name of many sporty Skodas like the Octavia and Fabia - but only in the UK and some other countries. In the rest of the world, the models are simply labeled RS. The reason for that is that Ford UK somehow managed to copyright their RS badge which we talked about earlier. Ford took them to court, and so Skoda changed the name into vRS which probably stands for Victor Rallye Sport.
I did some research in a Skoda forum, and there were many other suggestions what the dubious V could mean: From ‘vzor’ (model) to ‘vrchlabi’ (a main Skoda plant). Victor Rallye Sport was suggested by quite a few, and it’s probably the correct meaning. However, nobody seems to know for sure, and so let’s just agree on ‘Very Rapid Skoda’…

VXR is the branding for the high-performance trim specification, used since 2004 for models in many of Vauxhall’s car range in the United Kingdom. Holden also uses the VXR badge for some of its high-performance cars such as the Astra VXR and Insignia VXR. The VXR brand is closely linked to VX Racing, Vauxhalls British Touring Car Championship team. The VXR badge was first launched in the summer of 2004 at the British Motor Show with the Monaro.

According to Wikipedia, GTI stands for Gran Turismo Injection and is a acronym for sporty cars with petrol injection engines. It was first used by Maserati on their 3500 GTI, and became popular with the launch of the Golf GTI in 1976. Volkswagen copyrighted the GTI badge in Germany and the United States. However, there are other cars which also used this name, like the Citroen CX GTi.

Hope you guys enjoyed this post!
Don’t forget to check out my post about the meaning of estate names and acronyms!
Which ones did I forget? Comment below!
Tobi aka The Stig’s German Cousin